Community Highlights: Meet Megan Ghormley and Ashlyn Leyba of AZ Mom Squad

Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Ghormley and Ashlyn Leyba.

Hi Megan and Ashlyn, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
We are sisters born and raised in Mesa Arizona. We love exploring and traveling and discovering new parts of Arizona and when we both had children, we made it a goal to encourage them to grow a love for Arizona as well. Last March when COVID hit, Ashlyn came up with the idea to share our AZ favorites online. Megan came up with a business name and just like that AZ Mom Squad was born. We found out very quickly that we both love to shop local; we are not big online shoppers. We love unique Arizona finds, and so our goal was to find and promote small and local businesses in Arizona. We have absolutely loved meeting new people and discovering new places and products, but most of all we’ve loved being able to do our small part to help the businesses that were affected by the pandemic.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It hasn’t always been easy and sometimes it was very stressful, but all new businesses are that way, so we weren’t surprised. But it has always been rewarding. We love working together and our children get to spend extra time together, so that’s an added bonus! One of the things we struggled with the most was finding our niche. We didn’t know right away that we wanted to promote local, but it became natural and obvious along the way. One of the biggest struggles that any working mother can attest to is finding the proper work-home balance that works for you. We were having a hard time figuring out how much time to spend on the new business without taking away time from family and our usual responsibilities. We have since found our flow and it has been much less stressful and much more fun!

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about AZ Mom Squad?
Our business is AZ Mom Squad. It is an Arizona native run business that promotes small shops and local businesses. Our goal is to encourage Arizona moms to shop local and small. We especially promote other mom-owned businesses. We love when mom’s work hard to not only be a mom, but to figure out a way to provide a second or even a sole income for their families. We are different from other businesses because we only promote local. Our audience is mostly moms in the East Valley, and we discover things that you could purchase at Target or Amazon and then give mom’s local options instead. We think it’s important to keep our money in Arizona as best we can and we think it’s especially important to support small businesses. Supporting small businesses helps the local economy in a way that Amazon and Target do not. Our audience consists of local moms and local businesses. We sell our promotional packages to local, small shops, and offer various advertising resources through our blog posts and social media promotion. We provide authentic promotional services to Arizona businesses.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Just after the pandemic hit, Ashlyn decided to close her business in marketing and work solely on AZ Mom Squad. She has taken many risks with her investments but it was well worth it, and has paid for the business in the long run. Unfortunately as moms, we are unable to take substantial risks as our first priorities are our homes and families. But we have taken risks in terms of the amount of time, money and effort we’ve put into the business. Without any risk, businesses would have a difficult time growing.

Contact Info:

• Email: info@azmomsquad.com
• Website: www.azmomsquad.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/azmomsquad
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/azmomsquad
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzwchvkpFmFFwOlj5ELGrQ

Image Credits
Robert Biggs Katie Boyd Erin Horn